i will wait
by MandeePotter
Summary: in which cassandre becomes grantaire's latest intoxication and lyrics are laid to waste [modern les amis au, grantaire/oc]


He knows that there was a body next to him but he doesn't bother looking at it. Sometimes it was just best to leave his string of lovers a mystery.

His jeans hang of his skinny hips, bones jutting out. Joly always remarked that Grantaire was the skinniest alcoholic he'd ever seen. Maybe it was because he drank to fill up the hollow ache inside his body.

He looked around for his shirt, as the bed creaked. Grantaire froze, as a body sat up.

"Looking for this?"

* * *

Her name was Cassandre Delacroix.

She worked at a record shop, and was Marius's second cousin. She loved Florence and the Machine, and loved to sing when she was drunk, but was too shy to even talk to him when she was sober. She wrote her own songs sometimes, but usually threw them off bridges into the Seine when she was done.

"It was too beautiful to live," Jehan said, shaking his head with a forlorn smile as the paper fell into the water, the ink bleeding the lyrics together.

She had gleaming red hair, and soft blue eyes as she was warm and as radiant as the fucking sunshine that streamed through her windows on lazy sunday afternoons, grantaire thought.

She loved his curly hair, and longed to run her hands though it but she kept them clasped in her lap instead. When he was hungover she googled homemade 'cures' even though he already knew every one in the book. She tucked him into bed when he was drunk and stumbled into her apartment, and she slept on the couch no matter how much Grantaire complained when he woke up to see her there. She became sad when she saw the bags under his bloodshot eyes and she wrote songs about the depth she saw in them.

Some nights she got drunk too, and they did karaoke, but they would never perform a song together. She would sing some obscure indie band he'd never heard of, and he'd tear up when he heard the lyrics (_and if you're still breathing you're the lucky one, cause most of us are heaving though corrupted lungs_) and sometimes she'd sing slow sad songs, or other times she'd sing happy songs and clapped and yelled and jumped and she was _so fucking glorious_.

She didn't swear much, and when she did it was a quiet whisper and he thought that it sounded like pure honey dripping out of her pouty lips. He swore frequently and she'd never admit it but she loved it. She loved it when he smoked cigarettes in her apartment.

Their conversations were whispered and awkward for anyone else who listened. Between the two they were intimate and connected. No one quite understood them, but no one could deny how good she was for him.

* * *

"I love your name. Cassandre. It's so goddamned beautiful," he said, tripping around in her apartment, a little after three in the morning.

"You look like Aphrodite in that little nightdress y'know. I didn't know anyone even wore those anymore, but I'm pretty fucking glad that you do," he said, while a part of him cringed at his crudeness, while the other almost died watching the blush spread over her cheeks.

"C'mon, R, let's put you to bed," she said, walking towards her bedroom as he followed at her heels. He stood next to her, close enough to hear her breathing.

"I don't like it when you call me 'R'. Call me Grantaire, please," he said, and she saw a sadness that lasted for years in his eyes.

"Okay, Grantaire," she whispered, and his lips quirked up. He tried to take off his shirt to get ready for bed, but his arms got tangled in the sleeves, and flailed around. Unspoken, Cassandre reached for him, and helped pull his arms out, and the shirt off. Her fingers unconsciously ghosted over his bare chest. His head fell back ever so slightly.

"What's your real first name, Grantaire?" she said moving a centimeter closer. He wanted to tell her his name, he wanted to tell her everything, even the things she'd never want to know.

"M'name's not important," he mumbled. His name was one of the few things he kept to himself, he owned it, and no one quite understood it but he'd read all the faerytales, he knew about Rumpelstiltskin and how much a name was worth, and he kept it to himself. But now his princess was looking at him. A girl that didn't look at him as a fun night, a drunkard, or an idiot. A girl was looking at him like he was a knight. He'd never had someone look at him like that. And he knew that he'd give this princess all the gold he had to offer.

"M'name. It's Maxime," He said, as he fell on top of the bed, and she tucked him under the covers.

"Good night Max, my love," she whispered so softly, he wondered if he was already passed out in another drunken stupor. She moved close and laid the softest lips onto his forehead, and moved away, a few gentle fingers lingering on his cheek.

"Remember me in the morning. Remember this. Please."

* * *

He wanted to kiss her.

He wanted them to become one incinerating, flaming being, he wanted them to burn each other to the fucking ground. Because flames don't mix well with alcohol, but if the two of them weren't made for each other, then nothing was.

They danced around each other, avoiding feelings for over a year now. He didn't even know if it was possible for something like this to even happen.

Whenever Eponine and Enjolras could pull away from each other for half a second, they'd yell at him and say that if he didn't get her soon enough, someone else would.

Which wasn't true of course, because Cassandre was much too in love with him to ever even so much as look at another man. He ignited himself within her, but she was so terrified to ever touch him, how dare she lay a finger on something so beautiful?

* * *

When they kissed it was glorious. The world stopped, and his hand were desperate, wrapped entirely around her back, pressing her as tightly as possible to him. Her hands held his cheeks, and their lips, _oh their lips_, were moving against each other and Grantaire figured that he must have third degree burns by now.

Their hands moved everywhere, and she was the sexiest goddamned thing that he'd ever laid eyes on.

When they were done kissing they held onto each other for hours. They were both so terribly fragile, both were bound to crash and burn soon enough, but for now, Grantaire held her tiny little freckled hand, and that was enough to last forever.


End file.
